Police probe five suspicious killings by lethal injection carried out by Dutch doctors

A string of suspicious killings by doctors are being investigated in the country that pioneered legalised euthanasia.

The deaths of four women who died by lethal injection in the Netherlands may have been ‘criminal euthanasia’, prosecution officials said.

It brings to five the number of deaths under criminal investigation, and places a new question mark over the rapid spread of mercy killing in the country.

Euthanasia, first allowed 16 years ago, now accounts for more than one in every 25 deaths.

The growing number of cases – 6,585 in 2017 – has gone unquestioned by authorities until recent months.

Last year the Dutch equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service began an inquiry after a 74-year-old woman suffering from dementia struggled against the lethal injection and was held down by relatives as it was administered.